love to the tune of moonlight
by linh cinder
Summary: "You're the runaway daughter of last decade's It Guy, you're underage, and you're spoiled to the bone. Is that enough explanation for you, or would like some more?" He forgot: she was a pianist, too. (or, Piper has a past with a more pressing present. 1920's liper au)


**notes:** im back again! this story is for my friend nezzie, who is an absolutely amazing writer and artist whom i love with all my heart. also a BIG ty to emily for also inspiring me to do this and for saying this was a good idea in the first place, thank you!

i had this idea when i first started high school and thought i could pen it in one night so...i did it! yay! i'm only posting it so late because i've been editing tbh.

i strongly recommend listening to the song clair de lune when you get to the line that says "It's beautiful, isn't it?" to add to the story a bit

there will be a second fic from leo's perspective later. hope yall like it!

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love to the tune of moonlight

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* * *

Sometimes, when Piper hears the piano, her hands start to twitch.

She hasn't touched ivory in years, but she still feels the phantom pains of it. From hours spent in the summers of her youth on the top floor of Ms. Jane's hen coup, the feeling has been ingrained in her; the coolness of the keys is now embedded into the grooves of her fingertips, an unremovable stain. Clair de Lune often plays in the wind without a piano to trace it back to. The weight of pennies still sits on her knuckles at night when she retires to bed, and the sting of an instructor's rod still slaps her wrist and wakes her up every morning. If there's something Piper's learned in her nineteen years, it's that there are some things you can't shake, no matter how hard you try. You're taught so well that they become a part of you, and you'll never forget how to play them.

She wonders when pulling capers had become her new instrument.

"Thank you, thank you!" There's a small roar of applause. Leo takes his bow on stage. Past the ragtag audience, in the back right corner and to the right of the bar, an under-dressed fool on the boxy piano keeps pounding like the notes are his. Something irks her about it; there's a frown to her lips and she doubts her accomplice even notices, what-with the way he's bowing and blowing kisses to the crowd like tonight's his last gig on earth. She bows, too, as is her job as his assistant, and starts to roll their prop box off-stage. Someone starts throwing pennies, so she ducks and hurries off fast, but Piper can still hear it. The piano. She's out of sight before she can think about it too much.

Leo finishes the routine with his usual spiel, "We'll be here all week," and "You're all too kind," followed by more. Piper waits behind the heavy rear curtain for what must be ages, but feels like mere moments. She seats herself on the sleek black magic box, and the next thing she knows, the lights are off, the piano's stopped its muffled playing, and Leo's bending over in the gloom. Pennies wink in his hands as he rushes to gather them up from the cracks in the wood, shuffling them into his pockets.

He straightens up, making creases in his freshly ironed coat as he stretches his back out. She can hear the money clinking around in the folds of his costume; she licks her lips as an afterthought.

"How much?" she asks as she catches sight of a grin, one that plays at the corners of his mouth. When Leo looks up, busy tugging on the lapels of his violet overcoat, he graces her with a full smile, teeth and all, and she knows that they've made their bounty.

"A whole bushel of berries," he says proudly, turning up his collar as he makes the short trek to her side. Piper matches his grin as she hops down off the box. "We're good for at least a couple more nights, if not three." He takes her hands in his own and they share a smile, but his grin suddenly wavers a bit. "Well," he clears his throat, "a couple more nights if a bull doesn't rear its head around here—"

"It's fine." Piper says as firmly as she can, even though it had happened at the last gig. It had taken them a full two hours to find each other in the chaos, staying hidden on different ends of the theater as they waited for the policemen to disperse. She gives his hands a squeeze. "We'll do the week, then scram. All according to plan, right?"

He looks at her with his amber eyes, the crease between his dark, bushy brows smoothing out as he smiles—slowly, surely—and then presses a kiss to her temple.

"We'll do the week," he agrees, pulling her close. She lays her head on his chest and can hear his heart beating wildly beneath the cheap, gaudy fabric. Piper idly scratches at an itch beneath her fishnets stockings. "Promise."

* * *

"You want me to do what?" Piper gapes, curls flying as she follows Leo's movements.

Before he can answer, the sudden jostling of the train car throws them to one side. Luggage topples down from the tops of towers between them as they try to right themselves. Piper quickly grabs for the nearest handhold—a tight rope binding boxes to each other—and holds, afraid, and closes her eyes as the world crashes down around them. All around her, heavy baggage clamors to the floor before the cabin is filled with silence.

The air smells like sawdust. The sound of Leo's heavy breathing seems to be right behind her, just audible over the noisy clacking of the train rushing along the tracks. Piper opens her eyes, and can't say she's surprised in the slightest to see Leo hunkering over her, holding onto the ropes around her like a makeshift human shield. For a second, they stare wide-eyed at each other, and he almost looks apologetic as he takes a step back, one hand wringing in the hem of his over-sized shirt. But then that wretched, determined look takes over his face again, and Piper knowsthere's no argument, which is unlike anything she'd ever known.

Despite his heroism, Leo Valdez was a special case. She'd known him for all of two days, and he'd already become immune to her.

"Look, doll." he starts, going to lean back on the nearest teetering tower of impedimenta to ground himself. He splays one hand in the air as he talks, and runs the other through his head of curls, over and over. "It's not that I want you to do it, not really. But I'm looking for a gal who'll play the part easy, and you?"

Leo makes a face. Piper glowers. He visibly swallows, and she's almost shocked at the words that leave his mouth.

"You are definitely not easy."

"I fit the bill!" she all but screams, slamming a hand over her mouth when she sees the cautioned look on Leo's face before lowering her voice down a few decibels, hissing, "I heard you say it yourself, Valdez, right back at Union Station—all you need is a girl to wear the get-up and smile the smile. I could be that for you! Why won't you just let me?"

"Hm, let me see." he starts to tap his chin. "You're the runaway daughter of last decade's It Guy, you're underage, and you're spoiled to the bone. Is that enough explanation for you, or would like some more?"

Piper scowls. Out of habit, she goes to stomp her foot, but then remembers what he'd just said: you're spoiled to the bone. Suddenly very aware of herself, she tries to play it off like she'd been scuffing her shoe on the ground, averting her gaze to the wall.

"Killjoy," she grumbles, crossing her arms.

"Bearcat," he smirks, not missing a beat. She blushes. He looks much too smug for his own good.

Leo pushes himself forward, standing steady on his feet. "Listen, if you're face is ever not in the weekly paper, feel free to give me another call. You mightn't got the attitude for a magician's assistant, but you've sure got the hair for one," he laughs, reaching over to pull at one of the tight coils in Piper's hair before she swats at his hand. She's sure her face is as red as the weathered suitcase sitting at her side, and she absently tugs at a curl, frowning.

"Ms. Jane said curls were becoming of me." she argues, pouting.

"Ms. Jane doesn't know the first thing about young adults," he shoots back as he weaves between the columns on his way to the front of the car. "I'm guessing she's a regular Rock of Ages."

This time, Piper does stomp her foot. "She's twenty-nine!"

"And you're seventeen." He calls back, his voice muffled by the rattling sound of the train on its path, and obscured even more by their distance. "Grow one more, and then we'll talk. For now, I'm taking you home."

* * *

Leo did not, in fact, take Piper home. A change in the weather made sure of that.

"Well ain't Mother Nature a bitch," he mutters as he leads her across the platform, Piper stumbling to keep up with him in the throbbing crowd that pressed at them on every side. Flakes of snow gleamed in the air like crystal, coming down hard and heavy like it was rain and nothing else. She'd be half frozen to death if it weren't for the coat he'd draped over her shoulders, and lost forever if it weren't for the hand he'd latched around her wrist. Where he touched her, she was warm like she'd never been before. It was a feeling that went beyond her hands and went all the way down to her numbing toes.

She saw the moment that Leo seemed to realize what he'd said, and his face went beet red as he stumbled in his gait and quickly turned back to face her. "Er, um. Pardon my French, miss. Forget I said it."

"Good thing I speak French." she retorts, ducking her head low as he weaves them past people from all walks of life, some dressed in rags, and others in in furs and feathers.

"Of course you speak French." he grumbles lowly before ducking off sharply to the side. Piper has no choice but to follow. On this end of the avenue, the throng thins out a bit; outside the station's parameter, only stragglers wander about, most sitting on the frozen city curbs with empty cups raised and their mouths wide open, hoping to get both filled.

The street is a cacophony of differing voices and sounds, the occasional automobile daring to add its horn to the fray as it navigates down the busy, cobblestone street. Leo tugs her into the arched doorway of what seems to be a run-down tenement, her one case of luggage a deep red in his hand like blood. They make themselves scarce against the concrete, breathing deeply, and take pause to catch their breaths. Their eyes meet. Leo's hand is still on her wrist, and in the niche, their breaths echo.

Leo's eyes trail down to her lips, then lower, lower. His Adam's apple bobs when he swallows.

Piper's mouth is suddenly very dry.

"Don't you do something stupid," she finds herself mumbling, her words a sharp warning as he slowly begins to lean in. At her caveat, Leo stops abruptly, blinking out of it as he seems to catch himself. His eyes snap back up to her face, but his gaze still rests right below her eyes—on her lips, red with cold, itching to be warmed.

She thinks of wooden nickels.

"I'm just trying to figure out what to do with you, is all." Leo says eventually, a sense of normalcy returning to them once that slight smirk is tugging at his lips. He takes a step back. The moment is over. "The rails are grounded with this weather, so we're not getting back upstate for at least a couple of days. We could wait it out," he suggests, biting his lip, "But I'm not sure where. North of Yonkers has never really been my business."

"We could go back..." Piper says hesitantly, braced for opposition. She's put him through this much, and he has no reason to keep helping her now. Nothing he'd said about her on the train had been wrong, and she was just big enough of a person to admit it to herself. Leo had been right in every word, and she was just fiery enough to deny it until they'd been curbed twenty more miles up on the path to her home in Rochester. He was right—she was a spoiled brat. She was lucky enough to grow up far away from the harshness of the city, secluded on her father's estate, looking prim and proper like the actor's daughter she was as she grew up on a mansion's grounds, in a hair salon, on the top floor where she learned to tickle the ivories to pass the time. She was young —she's be seventeen for another six months, til winter turned to spring, and spring paraded itself around like summer. Leo was eighteen going on nineteen in February, just three months away. She was a fool to think she was mature enough to run from home, to make a life for herself apart from her father. She was a fool to think she was mature enough for him.

Leo makes a humming noise.

"We could go back..." he repeats slowly, peering at her in a way that seems like he's searching for something. Piper elects to do the brave thing for once and squares her shoulders, meeting his gaze eyes for eye. As he inspects her, she holds her breath, but she clenches her fists all the same; she's mature enough to admit defeat, at least. An earful is an earful. She would do what must be done.

A beat passes, and then Leo sighs, his shoulders sagging. That wasn't quite the response she'd been expecting.

"Alright." he claps his hands together once. His breath ghosts in the air, and for a moment the look in his eyes seems to be a little wilder than it usually is. "Alright. Okay. You've got me all screwy here, McLean, and now I'm standing here in Lord knows where freezing my ass off, but—wecould go back," he says once more, and it sounds like less of a proposition and more of a promise, an action. "And when — if —we do, we could, ah, I don't know—" he makes a general motion in her direction, rolling his wrist as he wrinkles his nose, "Dud you up, I guess? We could rent a flat, I'll say you're eighteen...I'll have to get the Stolls to help me with papers, but I think we might be able to manage to get your name changed—"

"THANK YOU!" she cries, practically leaping into his arms, bestowing upon him the first hug she's been able to give a soul in months. Leo stumbles back with the weight of her, clearly surprised, but he holds fast; he staggers back until she knows his spine is flat against the opposite wall of the archway, and she could care less about falling.

Here, now, all Piper can care about is his laugh in her ears, warm and bright. She cares about the way his arms wrap around her in return, shielding her from the cold. And she puts her faith in the way he turns his head, shaking it slightly at her in disbelief—and in the way he smiles at her, with promise.

* * *

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Leo's voice is quiet, and reverberates through the wide hall, bouncing from the rafters to the stage and back. Piper takes a seat by his side on the wooden bench, fingers on her left hand twitching for the keys while her right hand pins it down by the wrist. She watches patiently as Leo lifts the cover, his fingers ghosting over the polished keys. He looks up and smiles at her, teeth winking in the darkness, and she smiles back. She bites her lip as he gingerly presses a key.

"It's nice," she concedes, wrinkling her nose ever so slightly at the piano's rigid shape, thinking back to both the grand piano sitting in her father's study, and the one on the top floor of Ms. Jane's salon. She nods once more and meets his gaze, grinning. "It's lovely."

"I haven't played, since, well..." Leo frowns at the keys, pressing down a soft chord. It's one she vaguely recognizes from practice. He plays the beginnings of what seems to be a song, and she peers at him, frowning softly in the darkness.

Leo is twenty now. He's perfected his art and is doing what he has to do—he's conning the masses, holding the same show every night to put food on the table for him, for her, for anyone else who's hungry. Some believe it's magic, the way he saws her in half every night, the way he levitates her in mid-air, the way he makes his hand pass through her and money magically appears in his pockets, but Piper knows the truth. There is no magic to it, or to him, for that matter; it's a science he's perfected. She knows this because she's seen every machine back and under each stage before every performance; she knows every slight of hand and trick in the book because he's shared them all with her. She knows every prematurely grey hair on his head and how he dyes them, knows the song he's playing by tune and not by name because it was his mother's song, the one she'd taught him before she'd died and he'd ran away from his home, too.

Piper knows his tricks. Piper knows Leo.

And she knows there's no going back for both of them.

The melody of Leo's song floods the empty bar, dancing softly in the moonlight. Piper remembers the pianist from earlier in the afternoon, and rests her head on Leo's shoulder.

"Could you make it play?" she murmurs in question, tilting her chin towards him.

Leo reaches toward the pale wax film, his fingers dark in contrast. He adjusts it accordingly and grins down at her. "Any selections?"

"Dry up," she jokes. He presses a kiss to her cheek. She closes her eyes.

Then, the music plays.

* * *

 **REWARD UP FOR MCLEAN**

PITTSFORD GIRL DISAPPEARED

SEVERAL DAYS AGO.

Search for Piper McLean of Pittsford, who disappeared Saturday,

October 30, has so far been unsuccessful, although police in all

northeast cities have been asked to be on the lookout for her.

[...]

"She loves horses, singing, and the piano," said her father

Tristan McLean.

[...]

"Sweetheart, if you're out there, please come home."

 **Aug 9. 1924.**

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There is no magic to what they do now, though their contentment isn't an illusion. But she chooses to believe that there's magic to a player's piano, as unpopular as it may be.

The piano learned to play its own song; it strikes a tune set in grooves, like the ridges running deep in her fingertips.

It is its own instrument, and it never forgets the notes.

* * *

Piper doesn't, either.

When she goes to lie next to Leo that night, it's to the familiar, lilting tune of Clair de Lune.

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 **20's slang and their meanings:**

berries: money  
bull: policeman/law enforcement  
bearcat: a feisty/fiery girl  
Rock of Ages: a woman over the age of thirty; considered to be old  
"Don't pick up wooden nickels": an expression meaning "Don't do something stupid"  
"Dry up": "Shut up"

 **notes:** also, a player's piano is one of those old timey pianos that had a roll of music that rotated and generated notes on its own. it was most popular in 1924, but the public lost interest soon after. this took a lot of time and research (i settled for 3 hours of sleep for this), so please leave a review if you liked the fic! thanks for reading!


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